


From within

by ColdPorridge22



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Halloween, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 05:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16443419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColdPorridge22/pseuds/ColdPorridge22
Summary: Short story for Halloween! A mysterious and horrifying video makes it onto the gaming channel, but Phil has no idea how it got there. But that's okay. It's not like it's true, right?





	From within

The darkness of his sleep seemed to have dragged him under, his sense of self left behind in the world of the waking. He was unsure if he was having a dream, or if he was in the deepest recesses of his own mind where one might only visit when there was no consciousness left. He'd forget this as soon as he woke, he knew that. But for now he tried to take note of his surroundings.

 

While he felt himself moving as though he was wading through jelly, events around him bolted past like strikes of lightning encircling him. It reminded him of travelling by train, and trying to read the village name sign when the train sped past. In other words, it was quite impossible. Brightness, darkness, and a persistently flickering red dot. Vague shapes, humanoid, big and small. More than this he could not fathom.

 

Was this home? It felt like it, in a weird way, but he could not put his finger on it. The space he was in seemed both tiny and endless. He felt as though he was, in fact, inhabiting his own body, but looking out of eyes that were a hundred miles removed. He had something to do, to grab one of these shadows flashing by, although he felt as though his fingers were out of reach. He couldn't move them.

 

One more forlorn look out of his far-away eyes, he resigned and gave in to his helplessness. Flashes of red swirled around him, then fade to black.

 

###

 

He woke to a splash of cold water to his face. Gasping and sputtering, he jerked to reality - reality being the massively pissed off face of his roommate, Dan Howell.

 

"Wh-Wha..?" Phil started.

 

"Philip. Michael. Lester. You're a fucking psycho, you know that?" His roommate growled at him. His stance reinforced Phil's notion that he was somehow in deep trouble, seeing that Dan stood over him with his hands on his hips, his left hand holding the now empty glass of water.

 

Disoriented, Phil wiped at his face with one hand, trying to get as much water off him as he could, while his other hand groped around for his glasses. He found them, and put them on after wiping away strands of dripping hair.

 

"What'd I do?" And as he asked himself this, he searched his mind for a reason why his roommate would be impersonating the sword of Damocles right now. He tried to grasp fleeting images, the scenes of his dreams floating by, but they dissolved before he could make any sense of them. He looked at Dan, who had now come into focus thanks to his glasses.

 

"What did you _do_? That's fucking rich." Dan spat. "It's good editing, I'll give you that. Still really fucked up, though. Don't give a shit about my privacy, do you?"

 

Phil gave no answer, except to furrow his brow in thought. What on Earth was Dan talking about?

 

Dan waited, hands still on his hips, and when Phil gave no explanation, he sighed.

 

"Alright, alright. Stay in character if you will. But if you ever do that again, it'll be more than water I'm dumping on your head." Dan threatened, wiggling the glass in front of Phil's confused face. "You're lucky I need to go now."

 

That snapped Phil back to reality. "What? You weren't leaving til noon!"

 

"It _is_ noon, you spork. How long were you up editing anyway?" Dan sighed in exasperation.  "Look, we'll talk about this when I get back, but _you_ need to handle Twitter in the mean time, alright? Everyone's either freaking out or thinking Spooky Week started early. Oh, and use your own damn channel next time, okay?"

 

Before Phil could reply, Dan's phone let out a cheerful chime. "Uber's here." He muttered, then threw Phil an angry look. "We'll talk tonight. " And with that, Phil was left in his bed, wet hair sticking to his forehead and utterly, completely confused by what had just transpired.

 

###

 

Phil got out of bed slowly. In the somewhat strange exchange he'd had with Dan, he had been too preoccupied to notice his body was stiff and sore. With a groan, he got to his feet and observed his room. It wasn't too messy - hell, by his standards it was perfect. Nothing littered his desk except his phone. There was no camera equipment whatsoever.

 

What had Dan said? Editing... something on the gaming channel? He hadn't filmed anything in... well, at least a week now. And something about Twitter? God, his mind felt slow, like it was dragging itself through molasses. It felt weirdly familiar, though he could not say why.

 

He pulled up Twitter on his phone, seeing that he hadn't posted anything in a few days, though there was a tweet from Dan. "lol thanks @amazingphil for making me shit my pants first thing in the morning, you fucking creep. dw guys im still alive" and a link to a video.

 

Phil clicked the link.

 

The video started out black, before the screen seemed to lurch sideways and his own eyes stared back at him. Pupils blown so wide that only the barest rim of green and blue could be seen around them. The image held, four or five seconds, then the color of his irises desaturated and the entire image faded to black. More black. Then the vaguest contours of a room swam into existence and a door opened. Faint light from a distant light revealed the room in more detail, though the darkness still shrouded the most. A bed, he saw, Dan's bed, as he realized with a start. The image showed his roommate sleeping peacefully. The room was messy, clothes and random items strewn about.

 

Had he filmed in Dan's bedroom? His stomach turned. Phil had no recollection of filming. What the hell was happening? He felt nauseous, but he kept watching.

 

The video was edited quite choppy. A scene of the bedroom was followed by more staring eyes. Then a cut back to the room, only a few seconds, before a whirlwind of images flashed by. A hundred, no, a thousand images, racing past, all in the space of a few seconds, one right after the other as they blurred into a hurricane. And then it stopped.

 

Phil's mouth was dry, his reality tilting and shifting as he tried to make sense of this video. He didn't do this. This wasn't real.

 

Maybe this was... this was just a prank by Dan! Relief flooded over him as he came to this conclusion. Of course, what else could it be. This was Dan's prank video, not his own! That was the only way to explain it. He didn't know where Dan might've gotten the footage from his eyes, but hey, they filmed together for like 9 years, so he probably had something laying around. Feeling lighter than he had all morning, he returned his attention to the screen.

 

More choppy images raced past, and he could barely make out the shapes and forms. Scenes of suffering and pain, of creepy dolls, demonic beings and ghostly visages. All flew by too fast to register as individual depictions, just an array of spooky stuff. Phil could appreciate the massive amount of editing this would've taken, now that he wasn't scared out of his mind.

 

His relief didn't last long, however. The scene cut back to Dan's bedroom. Nothing moved for a few seconds, then a shadow was cast right out the door, preceding the caster into the dim bedroom. Slowly shuffling into view, Phil saw himself move into the bedroom. Dan was still completely oblivious in his bed.

 

Now Phil was scared. There was no way this was recorded without his knowledge, but... that was definitely him. How was that him? He wanted to scream, but he was frozen, unable to make a sound or a move, or do anything except watch on...

 

A few feet before the bed, video-Phil halted. Then the video fast-forwarded, showing Phil standing in front of the bed for what must have been at least an hour, swaying ever so slightly on his feet. Dan, meanwhile, tossed a couple of times, but seemed completely unaware. Then the fast-forwarding stopped and video-Phil turned towards the camera, and took a few teetering steps toward it. He came in close, examining the lens of the camera  with dead eyes.

 

The room faded, then came back into focus. Phil was back at his spot next to the bed, but this time there was one of the kitchen knives in his right hand. A cutscene to a much too cheery infomercial about knives, a host bragging in a distorted voice that these knives were the sharpest money could buy.

 

The next scene almost made Phil physically ill. Video-Phil was back in his spot, the knife once again at his side, but this time it was glistening red, blood dripping from the edge. Dan lay unmoving, on his stomach, his back a red ruin. His shirt was cut in several places, as was the vulnerable flesh beneath it and the blood stained the white remains of his shirt in crimson. Blood splattered up the wall, all over the bed and floor. Video-Phil turned his head towards the camera and grinned.

 

Then the video faded to black permanently.

 

###

 

Phil didn't remember much of the day that followed. After throwing his phone away in horror, he fled to the bathroom just in time to vomit violently. As he clasped the porcelain, heaving roughly, he tried to make sense - any sense - of what the fuck he had just witnessed.

 

That wasn't him. It couldn't be. And similarly, that hadn't been Dan. Dan was alive and well, he'd seen him at noon. His mind was swirling madly. Then how, _how_ could he have seen what he'd seen? And not just him, this video was somehow uploaded to the gaming channel, so loads of people had already seen it. Something _had_ happened, the real question was _how_.

 

A hundred theories raced through his mind, but none would fit the facts. None could explain the inexplicable. None could take away that horrific view of Dan, stabbed so many times that no inch of his back was unmarred. As Phil recalled the image, he vomited again.

 

His head felt impossibly heavy, as if he was carrying twice as much around in it. It felt as if it was pushing his eyeballs and eardrums from the inside out, pressure building up and up and up. Time seemed to lose meaning. His world went black.

 

###

 

Somehow he found himself in his bedroom again, staring into nothing. His brain had shut down trying to cope with this messed up situation. It had just given up the fight, instead choosing to completely dissociate in order to protect itself.

 

The sound of the front door unlocking barely registered, nor did the sound of Dan's footsteps in the hall. Only when there was a curt knock on the door of his bedroom, did his mind return cautiously.

 

Dan opened the door, even though Phil hadn't answered.

 

"You know, after that stunt you're lucky I even knocked." His voice was guarded. Phil recognized it as the voice Dan used when he tried to be reasonable and not let his emotions take over. He searched for words to answer his friend, but his mind was moving so slow. Why, why wasn't his brain cooperating?

 

"I-I... I'm sorry." Phil managed.

 

"Ya think?" Dan drawled sarcastically. "And what are you sorry for?"

 

_For killing you_. He thought. _No! No, I haven't. Dan's here, he's alive. I didn't kill you. But I did, it was so real, it was real, wasn't it?_ He shook himself, literally shaking his head to get rid of the bad thoughts. _NO!_ "I didn't kill you!"

 

It was out of his mouth before he registered it. Dan was gaping at him, mouth hanging open in disbelief.

 

"Well, fuck, there's an apology for the ages. 'I creeped over you while you were asleep and then pretended to murder you and I filmed it, but hey! I didn't kill you!' You're a fucking piece of work, you know that?"

 

"No, Dan, I'm sorry." Phil pleaded. "I'm sorry, I just don't... I just don't know! My mind, it's... Dan, I can't..." He started to get up, stretching his arms out toward his friend, but Dan recoiled.

 

"Look, it's been a long day." Dan said begrudgingly, holding his hands up in the air. "And I think you're sleep-deprived from editing all night. That's your own damn fault. But let's... just get some rest, alright?"

 

Dan turned to walk off, but looked over his shoulder one last time. "Just don't come into my room, or _I_ will murder _you_ , okay?" And before Phil could reply, he was off.

 

Yes, some sleep. That was what he needed.

 

###

 

Sleep was filled with terrible images, reruns of the most horrifying video Phil had ever seen. He awoke in cold sweat after what seemed like only a short period of time. His clock confirmed he'd only been asleep for a few hours.

 

After tossing and turning, he got up. He had an insane urge to check on Dan, but he knew his roommate would have no qualms about bringing him bodily harm if he did that. No, he had to distract himself. He turned on his pc, fully intent to just trawl reddit until he felt tired again. His head still felt like lead.

 

But there, smack dab in the middle of his desktop, was a file named 'Watch me'. Phil's blood froze in his veins. That was new. He hadn't made that file. Bile rose in the back of his throat. He couldn't watch that.

 

He wouldn't watch it.

 

But his mouse icon moved... and clicked... and a new video started to play.

 

Another image of Phil's eyes, staring intently, pupils blown wide. He couldn't look away. The black depths of his eyes seemed to beckon him, closer... closer... He didn't blink - neither pair of his eyes did - and his pupils seemed to melt together, the ones in his head and the ones on the screen, mingling and swirling until they were one.

 

For a second, he seemed to look at himself from inside the computer, gazing at his own fear-stricken form, but then...

 

He was sucked back into his own body, but he wasn't alone. He'd brought with him something much larger, much stronger and it was pushing him away deeper inside himself. It was pushing him further from his arms, his legs, his eyes, his voice.

 

He had no control, no matter how he screamed and begged and kicked and clawed. It had taken his body. He felt his arms move, grabbing camera equipment. He tried to stop his legs, that forced him into the other bedroom, where Dan was sleeping peacefully.

 

He saw, through far-away eyes, the knife in his hand. Whatever remained of his mind tried to protect him. He knew he couldn't prevent what would happen next. He couldn't watch it. He couldn't see himself murder his best friend.

 

So Phil's mind did the only thing it could - it shut down. The final thing he saw, where flashes of red.

 

Then fade to black.

**Author's Note:**

> Well... there you have it. A quick horror story. I haven't written in ages and this suddenly popped into my mind. Normally I don't write horror, so let me know how it went. Also, check out my other stories in my profile!


End file.
